BBC Radio 1 has grown to its biggest audience for more than a decade despite the station's breakfast presenter Chris Moyles falling further behind his BBC Radio 2 rival, Chris Evans.

Radio 1 had an average weekly reach of 11.85 million listeners in the three months to 18 September, according to official Rajar figures published on Thursday.

This was the station's highest quarterly listening figures since new audience methodology was introduced in 1999.

But Moyles, who has long harboured hopes of becoming the nation's most popular breakfast DJ, lost more than 250,000 listeners on the previous quarter, down to 7.16 million.

Evans, who succeeded Sir Terry Wogan on the Radio 2 breakfast show at the beginning of last year, grew his audience by another 200,000 listeners to 8.86 million, giving him his biggest-ever lead over Moyles of 1.7 million.

Radio 1 is now overseen by the acting controller – and firm favourite for the full-time job – Ben Cooper, who said: "I am thrilled that we've achieved a record reach for Radio 1.

"Whether it was standing in a muddy field in wellies or being in a club in Ibiza, this summer was all about us getting out and about reflecting the best live and new music from UK festivals and abroad.

"Plus, Scott Mills and Nick Grimshaw returned to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe where, digitally, we continued to pioneer ways of listening and talking to our young audience via our new website, the BBC Red Button and on Facebook, Twitter and Skype."

Radio 2's total audience grew 4.6% year-on-year to 14.31 million, meaning it remains by some distance the most popular radio station in the UK.

A number of Radio 2 shows achieved their biggest ever audiences, including weekday morning host Ken Bruce with 7.52 million, drivetime DJ Simon Mayo with 5.68 million and veteran presenter Desmond Carrington, with an average audience of 710,000 for his Friday evening show broadcast live from his home in Perthshire.

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